Providing
you with resources to prevent, manage & resolve conflict in the workplace.
Our website is a free resource to support individuals, managers and companies
increase job satisfaction, reduce, stress, save time, and increase productivity.

If you are in the health
or medical sectors, you know that the issues of conflict, arguments, hostility
and cooperation are major factors in your work environment. In fact the
medical sector is one of the most difficult because of two reasons. First,
stress levels are often high...mistakes are serious and speed is often,
literally, life. That increases the chances of friction occurring among
staff.

Second clientele involved
in the health sector are often not at their best. Most people are interacting
with health systems because they are ill or have major difficulties. The
same with their families and friends. We know that the more difficult the
situation, the more likely it is that clients, clientele, etc will exhibit
hostile behavior. Often that behavior on the part of patients or family
makes it more difficult to help in a time of great difficulty.

It's not fun. The more
time you spend dealing with conflict and hostility at work, the less time
is available to truly help people in need.And, for those of you
who work in non-publicly funded health systems, you know that customer
service IS an issue even the health and medical sectors.

Dealing
with this challenges is difficult, whether you are involved in direct patient
care in hospitals, working with families of people who are ill, involved
in the prescription drug industry, or involved in the care of the elderly.
It takes commitment and effort. But it also takes:

staff skilled in conflict prevention with clients and customers

staff skilled in "recovery" what you do when things go wrong with service
(complaints)

staff who don't waste time in internal squabbling and conflict with coworkers

teamwork

That where we come in. We help companies in the health
care sector prepare their staff to PREVENT conflict, both with customers,
and with co-workers. We help prepare staff to deal with difficult customer,
the hostile customer, or even worse that customer from hell who takes great
joy in manipulating staff and management, as if it's some jolly game.

Conflict Prevention With Clients
and Customers

Many staff (people) communicate with customers in ways
that put them off. It's not that they do it intentionally--they just use
language in ways that offend people or throw gasoline on the fire. In some
cases, staff can create customer problems when none exist. Imagine the
effect of the health care worker who responds to a complaint by saying
"Sorry, Sir, there is nothing I can do, you'll
have to wait for the doctor", and then walks away.
Heck, it's polite, it may even be accurate, but it's more than likely that
approach is going to end up costing people time if the patient gets difficult.
And now there's a problem that could have been avoided with proper handling
-- with the use of what we call COOPERATIVE COMMUNICATION.

Through our book, Conflict
Prevention In the Workplace we teach people the difference between
language that causes confrontations and language that encourages cooperation,
either with customers or co-workers.

We also design
and deliver custom-designed seminars on this
topic. No canned stuff. We teach people the use of conflict prevention
techniques using examples from THEIR workplace and company. We can do that
in various time spans--half-day, 1 day or two day, depending on needs.
For details call us at (204) 888-9290.

What's the bottom line with conflict
prevention? With respect to customers, it SAVES time because it prevents
escalation of conflict, disagreement, etc. It saves stress, by keeping
things in control. Everybody wins. Customers feel they are being treated
well, and come back. Oh, and managers don't have to get involved as often
with customer disputes.

Recovery - When Things Get Buggered
UP

It's impossible to get
things perfect. Stuff happens...mistakes get made. What KEEPS customers
from giving up on you is how your staff and company recovers, or treats
the angry customer when there is a problem. How do your staff deal
with an angry customer? Are they defensive (that's big trouble)? Do they
get aggressive (kiss your customer goodbye)? Are they helpful and supportive?
Do they know what to do and say even if they CAN'T fix the customers problem?

They'd better be able
to do this right.

How can we help.? First
we can design and deliver custom-designed
seminars on defusing hostile customers. We
do it your way, consistent with your company policies. Send us email for
more information at rbacal@escape.ca

We have produces several books
and workbooks on defusing hostile customers (see left hand side of this
page). At the moment we don't have a version for the health care sector
sector, but may do one in the future. However, the principles are the same.

Bottom Line: We teach you and
staff how to deal with the difficult, the ornery, the offended, the angry,
and the manipulative customer .

Teamwork & Internal Conflict
Among Personnel

Still with us? It's impossible
to provide effective customer service if staff don't work in concert and
in harmony. They need to be harnessed and pulling in the same direction,
not in different ones. And, yes, there's an art to it, and people can learn
to handle internal conflict much more effectively, and to prevent it from
occurring in the first place.

We can consult with you to create
a plan to help staff work together. We can work with you to teach those
"ole" conflict prevention techniques. Or we can provide multiple copies
of Conflict Prevention In The Workplace at
a significant discount.

Enough Already!

OK. I could go on and on and
you have better things to do than read more. Here's the summary:

We provide training, publications
and do motivational speaking on the subject of conflict, communication
and customer service for the health and medical sectors.

Contact us by email at rbacal@escape.ca,
by phone at (204) 888-9290 or fax at (204) 888-2056